Category Archives: security

Yesterday I attended the G4S AGM at the Excel Centre in London, I was not prepared for what I saw and experienced. I felt oppression as soon as I entered the building; it was as though I was being ‘kettled’ into an area to be contained. Security was very tight and uncomfortable, my every movement was watched, and it was intimidating! Before being allowed into the actual room for the AGM, G4S security eye-balled you, the atmosphere was heavy and everyone remained silent!

I sat down 5 rows from the front on the left and quickly the seats were filled around me. I felt nervous, apprehensive and uneasy. A G4S security guard sat beside me and another guard that was lined up along the wall had his eyes focused on me. I had dressed smartly in a suit, was polite, yet I seemed to be targeted by the staff. Within minutes of the start of the meeting I saw the heavy-handedness of the G4S security staff and after only 20 minutes or so 3 shareholders had been pulled and dragged from beside me. One man was dragged over my legs pinning me to my seat and I was unable to move away. I was horrified as the staff showed no respect and no due care and attention. The majority of the board of 12 members in front of us remained silent. To be honest I felt rather scared and wondered if for my own safety I should leave at that moment. I was visibly shaken by the whole experience, but I was determined that I would put my question to the board so I pulled myself together and prepared for my opportunity.

When the Chairman John Connolly finally noticed my hand I took the microphone, stood up and addressed the board by saying “I would like to go back to the subject of caring for prisoners…

One year ago (10–21June 2013) the Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Oakwood by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons stated that…

“Against all four of our healthy prison tests, safety, respect, activity and resettlement, the outcomes we observed were either insufficient or poor”

Why is it that after a year, there are still major issues within that prison? An example is that the Government released figures in April revealing that more than 600 incidents of self-harm had been recorded in HMP Oakwood in 2013, yet the web site for HMP Oakwood states: we aim to inspire, motivate and guide prisoners to become the best they can be.

My question was not answered, the CEO said that he was aware of the recommendations of the report and that it was normal to have teething problems with a new jail. In reference to the alarmingly high levels of self harm all that was said was there are self harm issues in all prisons.

I was closed down and unable to respond to his feeble answer, twice!

There was no remorse for what was happening in this prison, the CEO didn’t seem to be that concerned even though we are talking about lives.

On the train heading home I re-lived the afternoon and was still shocked at what I experienced. I am not put off, I plan to follow through my genuine concern for how G4S runs prisons in this country and I will be better prepared for next year’s AGM.

I was in Liverpool at the weekend attending the ‘How violent is Britain’ conference, hosted by the University of Liverpool and the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies which was attended by academia, policy makers and practitioners within the Criminal Justice System.

Whilst walking around the Tate in Liverpool, I recognised some unlikely parallels believe it or not between prisons and art galleries. It started by me thinking “who decided this was art? why is this piece of art here? and Oh that is a good idea” we all have our tastes, our ideas, our expressions, we are all different, individual. Every piece of art here is numbered, recorded and catalogued. Some piece have been transferred from other collections or other galleries, yet some are new. There are many flavours, many expressions and many tastes here. Security is high, you are watched.

Now let’s turn the page; walking around a prison my thoughts are “who decided this was a crime? why is this prisoner here? and that is a good idea” Every prisoner is numbered, recorded and categorised. Some have been transferred from other jails or other institutions and some are new to the system. Many nationalities many ethnic origins are represented here. Security is high, you are watched.

Which environment do I prefer?

In a gallery I look, enquire, have an interest, ponder, sometime write, buy postcards as a reminder to myself and to show others and then leave and return to my world.

In a prison I look, enquire, have an interest, ponder, write reports to remind me and to inform others and then leave.

The difference is I cannot just return to my world, what I see and hear surrounds my mind and my soul. I cannot just turn away, I want to be able to initiate change, see progress and ultimately see the Criminal Justice System reduced. That’s not to say that I want to close all prisons, sack all the police and let people live how they want. But there has to be an element of Restoration, just like a dirty canvas to reveal the true picture. I believe justice should restore and not just criminalize. Some pieces of art have a lasting impression on me the same can be said of certain prisoners. There is an uproar when we leave pieces of art to rot and in so doing deteriorate in front of our eyes so let’s not let people rot in jails and have greater problems on release than when they arrived.

Algorithms have been used by the police identify crime hot spots in Memphis, Tennessee since 2005. Under the code name of Operation Blue Crush, from 2005 to 2011 crime has dropped by 24%.

Crush represents “Criminal Reduction Utilising Statistical History” or predictive policing as police officers are guided by algorithms. Criminologists and data scientists at the University of Memphis compiled crime statistics from across the city over time and overlaid it with other statistics such as social housing maps, outside temperatures etc. They then instructed algorithms to search for correlations in the data to identify crime “hot spots” which led the police to flood the crime hot spot areas with targeted patrols.

According to the Guardian, Dr Ian Brown, the associate director of Oxford University’s Cyber Security Centre, raises concerns over the use of algorithms to aid policing, as seen in Memphis where Crush’s algorithms have reportedly linked some racial groups to particular crimes: “If you have a group that is disproportionately stopped by the police, such tactics could just magnify the perception they have of being targeted.”

Can this system work here? As the Home Secretary, Theresa May stated yesterday in Parliament:

Out of one million stop and search only 9% resulted in an arrest. So should Police Authorities use this or similar systems to target areas and predict crime or does it have the potential to create so-called crime “hot spots” with possible out of date data? There are then issues to take into account such as fairness and community confidence and the wasting of police time.

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, professor of internet governance and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, also warns against humans seeing causation when an algorithm identifies a correlation in vast swaths of data.

“This transformation presents an entirely new menace: penalties based on propensities, that are the possibility of using big-data predictions about people to judge and punish them even before they’ve acted. Doing this negates ideas of fairness, justice and free will.”

“In addition to privacy and propensity, there is a third danger. We risk falling victim to a dictatorship of data, whereby we fetishise the information, the output of our analyses, and end up misusing it. Handled responsibly, big data is a useful tool of rational decision-making. Wielded unwisely, it can become an instrument of the powerful, who may turn it into a source of repression, either by simply frustrating customers and employees or, worse, by harming citizens.”